International partnerships

How can teachers from other countries and cultures best guide, learn from, and collaborate with their Chinese students, particularly in today's challenging global circumstances? These were key questions posed by Charlie Reis in a fascinating talk given to UESTC teaching staff from Engineering and English Language subjects. Discussions on how an 'intercultural pedagogical model' might incorporate both ancient Chinese philosophy and solid, practical decisions about software, task design, and maximising student success, were lively and mutually informative.

The Chinese characters shown above refer to the Daoist concept of 'wu wei' central to Charlie's research, suggesting a flow achieved through practise, where expertise appears effortless and the teacher might be seen to disappear! His abstract and an illustration are below.

Abstract

"I will speak from my perspective on culturally relevant approaches to Chinese students in order to refocus them from passive and strategic learning to more active and deeper approaches. The focus of my talk will be that Chinese students generally come from a passive learning environment and actually have a different notion of learning (epistemology). Value for Chinese students is often seen as delivered from the expert to the novice. I will then talk about the importance of communication with students about the WHY of the HOW, offering rationale for the reason learning and teaching is structured differently from a traditional lecture-based approach. Also, I will talk about the dangers of essentialising any group and how Chinese students are normally quite active and social about learning, but in a way hidden from many instructors.

I will conclude by offering the Daoist concepts of wu wei (purposeful inaction) and ziran ('self-so' or nature [of a thing/person]) as concepts for learning design that also help with the Why of the How. Time permitting, I can also talk about Confucian values or Chinese models of expertise, and how these can be purposed for engagement and motivation."

Speaker's Bio

Charlie Reis is an Associate Professor and Director of the Educational Development Unit at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), director of XJTLU’s Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and founder of the China-based Association for Partnership in Educational Development (CAPED), which hosts biannual Transnational Conversations in partnership with the Scottish Higher Educational Development community (SHED).

His primary area of research is the incorporation of classical Chinese knowledge into contemporary learning and teaching. Other areas of focus are: transnational education, motivation and engagement, online and hybrid learning, academic identity, leadership, and science fiction. Recent publications include: ‘Zhuangzi and the Phenomenology of Expertise: Implications for educators’ in Developing Expertise for Teaching in Higher Education and ‘SOTL Enquiries in Four Disciplines: unlocking the Potential of Interdisciplinary Approaches and Methodologies’ in Asian Journal of the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching.

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First published: 17 June 2022